If house prices stay the same through 2009, the median household headed by a person between the ages of 45 and 54 will have 24.7 percent less wealth than a similiar household had in 2004, according to a new report on the housing crash and family wealth from the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

If real house prices fall another 10 percent, these folks will see a 34.6 percent loss in wealth — while families in the 18-to-34 age range will lose 67.6 percent.

This analysis should prompt serious re-examination of policy proposals to cut Social Security and Medicare for near retirees, according to Dean Baker of CEPR: “Policies that perhaps could have been justified at the peak of the housing bubble make much less sense now that tens of millions of near-retirees have just seen most of their wealth disappear.”